Phil Mickelson Says PGA Tour's 'Obnoxious Greed' Has Created Threat From Rival Tour

Phil Mickelson vented his frustrations with the PGA Tour and alluded to the possibility of quitting the Tour for a rival league.

Phil Mickelson had some harsh words for the PGA Tour, saying the organization’s “obnoxious greed’’ has led to players looking at other opportunities, including the possible new league being fronted by Hall of Famer Greg Norman.

In an interview with Golf Digest in Saudi Arabia, where the six-time major champion is competing this week in the PIF Saudi International, Mickelson said the possibility of a rival tour would be quelled if the PGA Tour simply relinquished media rights back to players.

“It’s not public knowledge, all that goes on,’’ Mickelson said. “But the players don’t have access to their own media. If the Tour wanted to end any threat, they could just hand back the media rights to the players. But they would rather throw $25 million here and $40 million there than give back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control. Or give up access to the $50-plus million they make every year on their own media channel.

“There are many issues but that is one of the biggest,’’ he said. “For me personally, it’s not enough that they are sitting on hundreds of millions of digital moments. They also have access to my shots, access I do not have. They also charge companies to use shots I have hit. And when I did ‘The Match’—there have been five of them—the tour forced me to pay them $1 million each time. For my own media rights. That type of greed is, to me, beyond obnoxious.”

Related: Power Struggle Between PGA Tour and Rival Saudi League Has Only Begun

Mickelson was referring the made-for-TV matches, the first two of which involved Tiger Woods.

The first edition, played in Las Vegas in 2018, was at first to be a winner-take-all purse of $10 million. But the PGA Tour stepped in and made the organizers reduce the number to $9 million because it didn’t want the prize to equal the amount that was then given to the FedEx Cup champion.

The Tour did also charge a rights fee to those putting on the event. As Mickelson noted, players assign their media rights to the PGA Tour upon taking membership, a stipulation that went into effect more than 50 years ago when players led by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Bob Goalby broke from the PGA of America and eventually formed the PGA Tour.

Because the Tour owns a player's media rights, it can extract a fee whenever those players appear on television outside of a PGA Tour event. It is why, also, players are required to receive releases – effectively permission – for playing in competing events, such as this week’s tournament on the Asian Tour, which is staged opposite the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Mickelson cited his famous shot at the par-5 13th hole during the final round of the Masters in 2010, which set up a birdie on his way to a third green jacket. According to Mickelson, a user who wanted to show a clip of that shot was required to pay $30,000 per second. Augusta National owns the rights to Masters footage.

The PGA Tour had no comment for Golf Digest and could not be reached by SI.com Wednesday night.

“I’m not sure how this is going to play out,” Mickelson said. “My ultimate loyalty is to the game of golf and what it has given me. I am so appreciative of the life it has provided. I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t know where things are headed. But I know I will be criticized. That’s not my concern. All that would do is dumb down one of the most intricate issues in sports. It would be so naive to not factor in all of the complexities. The media rights are but a small fraction of everything else. And it is the tour’s obnoxious greed that has really opened the door for opportunities elsewhere.”

Related: Pat Perez on Why the Saudi League Looks So Attractive to Tour Pros

Mickelson has long been linked with the rival tours which have been recruiting players behind the scenes for several years. Norman emerged in October as the CEO of LIV Golf Investments, a Saudi-backed company that is seeking to put together a to-be-named super league that would have huge purses, large guaranteed payouts, 54-hole no-cut tournaments and a team concept. The (London) Daily Mail reported Wednesday that Bryson DeChambeau has been offered in excess of $100 million to join the league.